Page 14 - Revelation

Svetlana de Rohan-Levashova. Revelation

that I would fall sick.

The pain took total hold of my child's heart and refused to let it go. The world
seemed intimidating, cold and empty. I could not accept the fact that my grandpa
would be buried and I would never see him again! I was angry with him that he had
left me and I was angry with myself that I failed to save him. Life was cruel and
unfair... and I hated it because I had to bury him. Probably, this is why it was the first
and last funeral which I ever attended in my life.
Reality

After the funeral I could not become myself. I became withdrawn and spent a lot
of time alone, which distressed all my family to the innermost of their hearts. But little
by little life took its normal course and I gradually began to come out of that deeply
isolated state in which I submerged myself, but this coming out did not appear to be
a simple thing... My patient and loving parents tried to help me, as best as they could.
But with all their efforts, they did not know that I was not alone anymore, that after
everything I had experienced, a much more unusual and fantastic world – than that in
which I had already lived for some time – suddenly opened before me. This world,
which excelled any imaginary fantasy with its beauty, was presented to me by my
grandpa’s extraordinary spirit. It was much more striking than everything that had
happened to me before. Only this time I did not want to share it with anybody for
some reason.

Day passed after day. In my everyday life I was an absolutely normal six-year-
old child, who had joys and sorrows, wishes and grief and such unrealizable cheerful
child's dreams. I chased after pigeons, adored going to the river with my parents,
played badminton with my friends, helped my mother and grandmother in the garden,
read my favourite books and studied playing the pianoforte. In other words, I lived
the most normal and ordinary life of a little child. The only trouble was that by that
time I already had two Lives. I lived as if being in two quite different worlds: the first
one was our ordinary world in which we all live every day; and the second one was
my own "hidden" world where only my soul lived. With every day it became more
and more difficult for me to understand why did everything that happened to me
not happen to any of my friends?
I began to notice more often that the more I shared my "unbelievable" stories
with some of my friends, the more often I felt a strange estrangement and non-child
watchfulness from them. It hurt and made me very sad. Children are curious, but they
do not like incomprehensible things. They always try to get to the essence of what is
going with their child's mind as quickly as possible and if they are unable to
understand it, it becomes "alien" to their everyday reality and they try to forget about
it as quickly as possible. Gradually I became such an "alien" thing.

I also began to understand that my mother was right when she advised me not to
tell my friends about everything. But I just could not understand why they did not
want to know about these things, they were so interesting! So, step by step, I came to
the sad understanding that I probably was not like any other children, that I was
different. When one day I asked my mother about it directly, she said that I must not
be sad, but on the contrary, I should be proud of it, because it was a special talent.

Back to content

13